And then came a knock on the door!

The whirling figure paused on the tips of its toes; the brooding face broke into smiles.

“It’s Pat!  Come!”

The word “come” was all that reached the waiting man outside—­and when he entered he gathered to himself the glad, joyous welcome meant for Patricia, and smiled at the poised figure.

“Why!” gasped Joan, and in her excitement almost spoke Raymond’s name.

“How—­did you find your way here?  How did you know?”

“Forgive me; I had to come.  I telephoned to the Brier Bush—­they gave me your number.”

Raymond closed the door behind him and came to the centre of the big room, and there he stood smiling at Joan.

“So your name is Sylvia?” he said.

Then Joan understood—­Elspeth had respected her wish to be unknown outside her business, she had given Sylvia’s name, had made Sylvia responsible.

“I tried to get you earlier by telephone.”

“I was not home.”  Joan was thinking hard and fast.  Something was very wrong, but she could not make out what it was.

“Forgive me for breaking rules:  I wanted to see you so that rules did not seem to count.  Go on with your dance.  You look like the spirit of twilight.  Dance.  Dance.”

Joan grew more and more perplexed.  The anger she felt was less than the sense of unreality about it all.  Raymond was a stranger; he repelled her; in a way, shocked her.

“I’m through dancing,” she said.  “Since you are here, sit down.  I will turn on the lights.”

“Please don’t.  And you are angry.  I’m awfully sorry, but it was this way:  I was having dinner with some friends and suddenly I seemed to hear you calling to me.  It gave me quite a shock.  I thought you might be in danger, might be needing me.”

Joan kept her eyes on Raymond’s face.  She was trying to overcome the growing aversion which alarmed her.

“No, I was not calling to you,” she said.  “I was bidding you good-bye—­really, though I did not know it myself.”

“Oh! come now!” Raymond bent forward over his clasped hands; “you are peeved!  Not a bit like the little sport with that line in her hand.”

“I—­I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”  Joan frowned.  “And I know it will sound rude—­but I—­wish you would go.”

“You are—­surly!” Raymond laughed again, and just then a deep, rumbling note of thunder followed a vivid flash.

“Come,” he went on; “dance for me.  There’s going to be a devil of a storm—­keep time to it.  I’m here—­I ask pardon for being here—­but you can’t turn me out in the storm.  Come, let us have another big memory for our adventure.”

Still Joan sat contemplating the man near her, her hands lightly clasped on her lap, her slim feet crossed and at ease—­little stocking-shod feet to which Raymond’s eyes turned.  She had never looked, to Raymond, so provoking and tempting.